THE TRUTH ABOUT ‘OLD TOBY’
Corps of Discovery narratives tend to run in epic straight lines. The part where the corps meets Sacagawea’s people in the Salmon River country tends to start at Lemhi Pass (on the Continental Divide), then beelines from Lost Trail Pass to Lolo Pass, from which it neatly follows the Lolo Trail, along which co-captains William Clark and Meriwether Lewis and their party nearly perished for lack of food during a grueling nine-day passage in 1805.
The narratives say little, if anything, about the Southern Nez Perce Trail, which followed the high ridges of the Upper Selway country through the very heart of the tangled northern Rockies. Lying far to the south of the Lolo Trail, it was known as Wise’isskit (Camping Trail) by the Lemhi Shoshones, as, unlike
